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This is not the 2-drop Priests have been waiting for. Most of the time it’s just a 2 mana 2/2, and that’s not good. Pairing it with Northshire Cleric sounds good, but drawing both of them in your opening hand sounds unlikely, and that’s probably the only time this card is worth it.

Dev445: Sir! People complain about lack of good priest 2 drops.
BBrode: hmm maybe we should print some?
MDonais: And then keep printing more and more till priest has more good 2s than rest of the classes combined
BBrode: HAHAHAHAHAHAH

Dev445: OK then. I’ll give Priest that Shadow Ascendant we designed for Warlock in Frozen Throne.
MDonais: Then give Warlock that card I told you about when I was drunk.
Dev445: You mean Treachery?
BBrode: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Do it!

Not sure on this – it’s going to be a high priority removal target I guess in something like a Buff Priest deck (would probably be less useful in Silence Buff Priest) with the way Priests can snowball their minions’ health.

This curves nicely into Kabal Talonpriest if it survives… which, on the coin, might not be inconceivable:

T2: Shadow Ascendant > Coin > PWS (2/4)
T3: Kabal Talonpriest – potentially a 2/6 and 4/5 on the board at the end of your turn, with the Talonpriest gaining +1/+1 each turn as long as the Ascendant is alive.

I don’t see why this is rated so highly. It’s a 2 health minion that is only even decent if you have one other minion on the board once you play it, priest doesn’t have alot of 1 drops that you actually play, the odds of you getting this and one of those 1-drops and your opponent not killing either are very low. Every class at this point can deal 2 damage by turn 2-3.

TL;DR It’s not impactful enough for the relatively large demand it gives you to have a 1 drop on turn 1.

Unfortunately this is not going to be the saviour of priest 2 drops like how everyone thought Mana Geode would be back in Meme Streets.

You’re slightly miscalculating. In 50% of cases you’re going second and might have a chance to coin out another 2 drop, which then can be hit by Shadow Ascendant.

I’m not saying it’s a 5-Star card, but it’s a really early card that requires immediate attention or else priest will be abe to obtain too much value from this card. 2 Mana 3/3 is good, 2 mana 4/4 with no downside is broken.

Yeah but we still live in a world where every class except for paladin (if you exclude rallying blade) has some form of early removal. If this card becomes popular people will mulligan for frost bolt/backstab/eviscerate/wrath/Fiery War Axe and what not. I still think it’s a decent card in arena. Also, it does not fit any priest archetype right now as far as I know but that could of course change when the Death Knight Anduin card is revealed.

I think this is a very good card, I give it at least 4 out of 5. It can give Priest great tempo to establish a good early game. You can use it alongside Northshire Cleric, Radiant Elemental + PW: S, Eggs, and even on late game to buff your important minions like Lyra or 5/5s which are sometimes weak. Pretty good, I will definitely build a deck around it.

While the card is overrated you underrate it. In a priest deck that wants to play this turn 2 we have northshire cleric and lightwarden (or just play patches like druids). One of those into this isn’t that much worse than murloc paladin 1 drop into rockpool which is a tier 1 power play. Whatever midrange/aggro priest has any hope is another matter entirely but this card is really really good if such a deck has the support. Hell warrior has an aggro deck and their hero power is strightly even worse for aggro.

This card is not good, I don’t understand why people rated it so high.
Priest’s only real 1-drop is cleric so it’s quite difficult to have both this and cleric in your hand consistently at the start of a match.
If played alone, it’s a bad card.
If it triggers once (which is the most likely situation) you’ve only gained 1 stat (because 2 mana minions should be 2-3s/3-2s).
On top of all this, this card doesn’t fit in any current priest archetype.
Meh

But how consistently are you going to be able to line your Crystalline Oracle/Cleric with this minion? And if you manage to do that, would that be a big enough impact that you’d run it in a priest deck that’s usually control oriented?

I’ve played around with an Aggro Murloc Priest deck, but it wasn’t even consistent in casual. IMO the main problem for Priest Aggro is that while you can build a decent-looking set of minions, you don’t have any other good support – no weapon, no Hero-power support, and no utility spells.
Paladin, Warrior, and Hunter Aggro work because they all have good weapons (that is key!) and utility spells (that can work for both board control and face), and Paladin and Hunter have aggressive Hero powers too.

it feels more like a druid card tbh. priest had some strong 2 drops in the pas but those made at least some sense through the sinergy aspect, like the 2/4 taunt or mana geode. but this card is just a 2 mana 3/3, which scales in value as the game goes on. not that its a bad card, and the powercreep dosent really bother me, its just that if priest keeps getting more druid-ish or warlock-ish cards then all the classes will start to feel the same. which is also why rogue and hunter shouldnt get healing, hunter shouldnt get card draw, druid shouldnt get strom removal or pally shouldnt get outright buff al minnions (like potw, moftl for druids)

its obviusly meant for arena play, to balance out priest, but it still gnaws at the back of my mind

Good tempo card, I would have liked it more as a battlecry for a more offensive option as priest, but I guess that’s not what priest is about.

Priest didn’t really need more value cards though, but as I said, on tempo, cleric into this, creates a strong turn 2 board state that can compete with current powerful openings (paladin murloc opening, patches, etc). Statwise, equal to old dragon priest opening, but the taunt on the 2/4 was safer against aggro, this card’s continuing value will allow you to put a early choke hold on control matchups.